When Taylor of Dobyns-Taylor Came to Kingsport

It was called Dobyns-Taylor Hardware but in actuality the downtown retail landmark sold just about everything, from jewelry to toys to sporting goods, even high school letter jackets. And of course hardware.

In 1949 G.W. Taylor, one of the founders, told the Kingsport Times that his first trip to Kingsport, in 1919, was almost his last:

It was a cold, wet, bleak night when the train pulled into the Kingsport station and Mr. Taylor alighted. He had come to Kingsport in the interest of a Chicago firm to sell hardware.

The train was late getting in - very late in fact and when Mr. Taylor glanced at his watch he found it was 1 a.m. The next thing was to find a hotel to spend the rest of the night. He started towards the Kingsport Hotel, located in what is now the building occupied by the Elite Hotel

Young Taylor wandered into the lobby. One dim bulb cast eerie shadows about the room but no one was there. He ascended a flight of stairs, pausing to knock on the first door he came to in the hope of getting some service.

He got an answer. A deep, booming voice said "You can’t get in here, we're four deep here already.”

Slightly daunted he retraced his steps and emerged once again on the street. He knew nothing about the town or where to try next.

A faint glow against the sky caught his eye and be thought -- there's fire over there, at least, and struck out across the open field. His feet got stuck in the mud but be kept going until he arrived at the glow. It was the brickyard.

Philosophically, Mr. Taylor decided that this was better than nothing for a roof over his head, and certainly better than braving the mud flats again. So he spent the night in a brick kiln.

"I didn't sleep." he said.

"My first thought: when is the next train out of here?" Mr. Taylor chuckled. "I was told that there wasn't another one until late that afternoon, so I decided I might as well sell some hardware."

The little experience was adequately made up for by Mr. Taylor's clients, M. R. Hillenberg and Will Kenner, who operated a hardware store at that time. They were so hospitable and made the remainder of Mr. Taylor's stay here so enjoyable that he even delayed his departure for a whole day.

Later young Taylor, a native of Lynchburg, Va, decided to make Kingsport his home and took a job in the hardware department of the Kingsport Stores (J. Fred Johnson’s everything store, originally located at the corner of Main and Shelby Streets). He subsequently became manager of this department and remained in that position until in June, 1922, he and Flem Dobyns established their own hardware store.

Hollywood Oops!

All the talk after the “Game of Thrones” return wasn’t about the Game but about a little oops: a Starbucks coffee cup on a table in one scene.

That reminded me of a story I wrote for the New York Daily News in 1995.

I’m posting it as a bonus.

Let's face it, folks, Hollywood has never been known for getting history straight.

I don't even have to mention Westerns, which took punks like Billy the Kid and alcoholics like William Cody and turned them into heroes.

Bonnie and Clyde were a couple of small-time bank robbers and hoods until they were glamorized by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in "Bonnie and Clyde.”

So today let's talk about some of the textbook errors the movies have made in presenting history lessons.

Let's begin with "Jungle Raiders,” which is set, according to the opening credits, in “Malaysia 1938." I hate to bring this up, but there wasn't a Malaysia until 1963.

Speaking of duh ... in "The Scalphunters," runaway slave Ossie Davis talks about the planet Pluto. "The Scalphunters” is set in the 19th century. Pluto wasn't discovered until 1930.

In “Who Framed Roger Rabbit," the Toontowners worry that their burg will be torn down for the world's first freeway - the Pasadena Freeway. Roger Rabbit was set in 1947; the Pasadena Freeway was built in 1940.

"The Sound of Music" is set in prewar Austria. So how is it that when Julie Andrews takes the Von Trapp kids to the market, they march past a crate marked "Jaffa Oranges - Produce of Israel"'? The state of Israel was created in 1948.

The quaint little 1984 Red Scare melodrama, "Red Dawn" was sold to moviegoers with this advertising slogan: "In our time no foreign army has ever occupied American soil. Until now." MGM/UA had to apologize to Alaska after some extra bright fifth-grader wrote in to remind them that Japan occupied the Aleutian Islands during World War II. But they didn't bother to change the ads, they just explained it away, saying "in our time" didn't extend back to the 1940s.

In "Emma Hamilton," a historical romance set in 1804, you can hear Big Ben striking a full 50 years before it was built.

A character in “Cruisin' '57' - set, logically enough, in 1957 - has on an Evel Knievel T-shirt. The daredevil didn't get his own T-shirts until the 1970s.

And talk about prescience, in “Annie," which is set in 1933, Daddy Warbucks buys out Radio City Music Hall to take Annie to see "Camille." "Camille" was released in 1936.

"The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal," which is based on the true story of a 1911 manufacturing plant fire that killed 145 people, shows a group of sweatshop women amusing themselves with imitations of Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp. Chaplin's first film was made in 1914.

Sometimes Hollywood has no respect for the speech patterns of a historical era, preferring to magically impose modern idioms on historical periods. "Harlem Nights," which is set in the Depression, finds Eddie Murphy saying such '80s (or '70s actually) kinds of things as "I'll let you have your space" and "get my head together” and - worst of all - "Yo!"

One of the worse offenders when it comes to history is Kevin Costner. In his medieval epic "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," set around 1100, some characters use gunpowder, which didn't arrive in Europe for another 150 years when Marco Polo brought it back from China. The character Azeem (Morgan Freeman) uses a telescope, a nifty little device that Galileo (or Lippershey) didn't invent for another 400 years. Then there are those neatly printed "Wanted” posters, tacked on trees throughout Sherwood Forest and Nottingham some 200 years before Guttenberg invented the printing press.

In Costner's even more epic "Dances With Wolves," there's a little hairdo problem with actress Mary McDonnell. McDonnell's character, Stands With a Fist, is said to have lived with the Indians since she was a child and yet she has that nice shag haircut and all the other Indian women have braids. Huh?

In Hollywood's defense, I should note that anachronisms weren't invented with the movies. Shakespeare had a character in "Julius Caesar" refer to a clock. The play took place about 100 B.C. That's sundial time!